DEBATE 1
Urobolus, you said,
“Curiously, you chose to leave out the fact that none of the founders meant to include women in their original declaration of equal rights.”
What, my posts aren’t long enough as it is??
New Jersey’s 1790 revision of its voting law dutifully implemented the Constitution’s literal “all inhabitants” by referring to voters as “he or she.” A 1796 law governing voting in federal elections, used the same language: “No person shall be entitled to vote in any township or precinct, than that in which he or she doth both reside…. Every voter shall openly, and in full view, deliver his or her ballot….”
Neither of these laws aroused any particular opposition or controversy.
Let us pause and reflect on what was just put down on the dinner table in front of us. For the first time in history, the women of a political community shared with men the right, stated in public law, to select their rulers. There can be only one explanation of why it happened in the United States at this particular time, and in no other country at any previous time. Most Americans, including the members of the New Jersey legislature, believed in the fundamental principle of the Revolution, that all men [i.e. humankind] are created equal. No other government had ever been grounded on this idea. Women, in fact, voted in the year of the Constitutional Convention. Historian Richard McCormick writes, “A Burlington poll list of 1787 contained the names Iona Curtis and Selveria Lilvey, presumably women.”
The first newspaper discussion of female voting in New Jersey did not occur until 1797, when the Federalist candidate in a hotly contested election to the state legislature was supported (unsuccessfully) by the women of Elizabethtown. In the Adams – Jefferson presidential election of 1800, and in other subsequent elections, women voted in large numbers throughout the state.
The land owning law requirements in some states were so loosely followed that almost all could vote (as we shall see). Still concentrating on Jersey and their Assembly of 1800 which considered a law that would have stated, “the inspectors of elections shall not refuse the vote of any widow or unmarried women of full age [holding no land in other words].” One representative wrote:
“The House unanimously agreed that this section would be clearly within the meaning of the [New Jersey] Constitution, and as the Constitution is the guide of inspectors, it would be entirely useless to insert it into law. The motion was negatived. Our Constitution gives this right to maids or widows, black or white.”
It was later said that the votes of two or three women of color swung the election of a state legislator in 1802.
A close electoral battle between Newark and Elizabeth over location of a new courthouse inspired massive voting fraud on both sides. Women (and of course men) were in the thick of it. [i]“Women and girls, black and white, married and single, with and without qualifications, voted again and again.”[/i] This is the episode which became the excuse for an 1807 law that restricted the franchise to free white males. This law directly violated the New Jersey’s constitution, which the courts thereafter dishonestly refused to acknowledge. Ironically, the representative who promoted the new law was the one and only Jeffersonian Republican who had nearly been defeated in 1797 by the federalist women of Elizabeth. This legislator, and the courts, threw out God’s law [created equal] and implemented man’s law.
Women also voted in other states during the founding era as well. Robert Dinkin, a historian of early American voting documents women in Massachusetts towns voting. A New York newspaper reported that [i]“two old widows, tendered, and were admitted to vote.”[/i] That was in 1737. Records are sparse, so it is likely that other incidents of female voting occurred in these and other states, both before the Revolution and after. By the time the [i]“amendment”[/i] was made to allow all sexes and races to vote, almost all were… without changing or adding a single word to the constitution. Even Wyoming granted the right to vote to women in 1869, again, without an amendment.
Frederick Douglass considered himself to be free? Are you putting words into this great abolitionists mouth? Larry Elder comments in some recent articles that may add to this discussion:
Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist, born a slave, once offered a lesson in patriotism. In 1859, he fled for his life, accused erroneously of participating in the raid on Harper's Ferry, along with John Brown.
Director-producer-writer Ron Maxwell ([i]"Gettysburg"[/i] and [i]"Gods and Generals"[/i]) notes that, in 1860, Douglass spoke in Glasgow, Scotland, where, prior to his address, a radical antislavery leader delivered a scathing attack not just on slavery, but on all things American.
Despite his experience of brutality and dehumanization, Douglass, nevertheless, criticized the previous speaker. "He who stands before a British audience to denounce anything peculiarly American in connection with slavery," said Douglass, [i]"has a very marked and decided advantage. It is not hard to believe the very worst of any country where a system like slavery has existed for centuries. This feeling towards everything American is very natural and very useful. I refer to it now not to condemn it, but to remind you that it is just possible that this feeling may be carried to too great length."[/i] He gave a detailed analysis of the American Constitution. Despite America's flaws, Douglass said, America stands unique in comparison to all other nations with its Constitution even with America's failure to live up to it.
ref: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/le20030327.shtml
Founding Father Ben Franklin established the first abolitionist society in Philadelphia in 1787. Speaking to the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, on Nov. 9, 1789, Benjamin Franklin said, [i]"Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils."[/i] In 1790, Franklin petitioned Congress, scolding them about the festering scar of slavery.
William Lloyd Garrison, a white slavery abolitionist, and the editor of the only abolitionist paper to survive 34 years of continuous publication, predicted that [i]"the destiny of the slaves is in the hands of the American women, and complete emancipation can never take place without their cooperation."[/i]
Did the women's suffragette movement bar men from supporting it? The Declaration of Sentiments, the foundation document of the women's rights movement, was signed shortly after the first Women's Rights Convention on July 19 and 20, 1848. Despite the request that only women attend that first day, at least 40 men showed up. Organizers allowed men to vote because, as Elizabeth Cady Stanton's History of Woman Suffrage suggests, this provided an opportunity for men to make themselves useful. And one man, indeed, proved very useful. All the resolutions were approved until the controversial ninth, calling for women to secure the right to vote. Many attendees -- both male and female -- denounced it as an outrageous demand that would cheapen the entire cause. Then abolitionist Frederick Douglass spoke, making clear that freedom was not divisible according to sex or color. The resolution passed. One hundred finally signed the Declaration, including 32 men.
ref: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/le20030501.shtml
You said,
“The 19th century is far behind us, and believe me, the face of America has changed. Just as I said, the founders knew they had to create an open-ended document, because they knew that politics would change and what was applicable in their time would no longer be applicable in two hundred years.”
John Adam’s said the following in an address to the military on Oct. 11, 1798:
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
You see, the Founders were very intelligent men, and when they created the Constitution, they did so on the hind sight and study of every government up to that point. And they realized one contributing factor that they all agreed on. Man is reprobate. So they configured the Constitution for a people and their worldview (I will post about this after this post). For this republic to survive, they realized that man had to be restrained within this document. Since man doesn’t change, neither should the document that much. And to change it the federal and state governments have a specific process to go through… not the federal judiciary stepping in and reinterpreting the documents intent. This is poli-sci 101.
You speak of “women’s rights,” or “minority rights,” and the like. To which do you refer? The movements today are driven by radicals that have deeper goals in mind, for instance, I did a paper for a friend on feminism, I will post a portion of it here.
Defining Terms
To better understand what modern, or gender feminism means, we must understand what liberal feminism represents. The liberal feminist is not out to second guess what women want; if most women enjoy families, if they enjoy “la difference,” this is of no concern for them. On the other hand, the gender feminist “believes that women constitute an oppressed class within an oppressive system: what ails women cannot be cured by merely achieving equal opportunity. As a class women are seen to be politically at odds with the patriarchy that oppresses them."[1] Consequently, the gender feminist will never accept the testimonies of ordinary women, since the gender feminist believes that ordinary women have unconsciously bought into a system that oppresses them [2]. Thus, the gender – modern – feminist simply presupposes her worldview [3] and reinterprets all contrary facts as examples of false consciousness. This worldview [4] permeates all that the modern feminist comes into contact with, including such things as history and religion. The gender feminist, then, has a radical perspective. She views social reality in terms of patriarchal “sex/gender system” that, in the words of Sandra Harding, “organizes social life throughout most of recorded history and in every culture today.”[5]
The liberal feminist, on the other hand, merely seeks legal equality for women and equality of opportunity in education and in the work place. It is this type of woman who wants what any classical liberal wants for anyone who suffers bias: fair treatment. The more extreme modern view of feminism is what has been institutionalized, unfortunately, in most of the Women’s Studies programs at the university level.
What’s Going On?
While Concerned Women for America have about 600,000 members, the National Organization of Women (NOW) has dwindled to less than 56,000 members. One of the reasons, I believe, for the resultant loss of a nationally known organization such as NOW, is to be found in the current movements direction. As an example, in the January 1988 National NOW Times, the newsletter for the organization, said: “The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist.” This may sound extreme, but in fact, this type of radical thinking has more to do with politics than with civil rights and equality. This political movement looks forward to the overthrow of the family unit as well as capitalism. Well-known feminist author and co-founder/editor of Ms Magazine, Gloria Steinem, said the following about feminisms “end game” (if you will): “Overthrowing capitalism is too small for us. We must overthrow the whole... patriarch!” [6]
How, though, can a civil rights movement be interested in capitalism? According to Tammy Bruce, who was the former president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW as well as being a former member of NOW’s national board of directors puts it: “What Gloria Steinem, Molly Yard, Patricia Ireland and all the rest have presented to you over the last 15 years (at least) has not been feminist theory.” [7]
Ms. Bruce goes on to show that Betty Friedan and Patricia Ireland, ex-president of NOW, (and others) are members of the Communist Party. In fact, Gloria Steinem is honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, which boasts of being the largest socialist organization in the United States and is the principle U. S. affiliate of the Socialist International. Now the political goals become clearer as we understand the intent of these “posers,” as Tammy Bruce calls them [8]. One of the signs of an over oppressive movement is well illustrated in The Animal Farm, by George Orwell. Napoleon, one of the main characters, concerns himself with the education of the young, and forcefully takes two litters of puppies away as soon as they're weaned, saying he'll educate them. In effect, the “State,” or those who are in charge raise them.
Now compare this to a statement made by feminist Mary Jo Bane (assistant professor of education at Wellesley College and associate director of the school's Center for Research on Woman) and the lesson taught in Animal Farm, “In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them.” Alternatively, In The Saturday Review of Education [9], Gloria Steinem declared: “By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God.” NEA president/feminist Catherine Barrett wrote in the same issue:
“Dramatic changes in the way we will raise our children in the year 2000 are indicated, particularly in terms of schooling...We will need to recognize that the so-called basic skills, which currently represent nearly the total effort in elementary schools, will be taught in one-quarter of the present school day...When this happens- and it's near- the teacher can rise to his true calling. More than a dispenser of information, the teacher will be a conveyor of values...We will be agents of change.”
Comparisons
A true feminist is a woman who fulfills her potential, like Brenda Feigen, co-founder of Ms Magazine, who exemplifies what the movement had been, with all its promise and enthusiasm. She became the kind of woman the modern feminist couldn’t keep up with! A lawyer, wife and mother, civil-rights activist, politician, Hollywood movie producer, and author… she is a feminist in the true sense of the word. This feminist sounds surprisingly like the one in Proverbs 31:10-31. These sayings are likely a woman writing what the woman’s role is (Lemuel’s mother). The New King James Version opens up verse 10 with, Who can find a virtuous wife?” A better rendering of this verse is “the truly capable woman.” It portrays her exercising responsibility for the provision of food and clothing for the household, and also being involved in managing financial and business affairs outside the house itself. She also cares for the needy, and fulfils a wise teaching ministry. This element of the portrait suggests that, as an authoritative teacher at the end of Proverbs (like Lemuel’s mother in v. 1), she parallels Ms. Wisdom in the opening chapters (i.e., corresponding expressions in 3:13-18; 9:1-6). Woman’s teaching role in the book alongside man’s (e.g., 1:8; 6:20) fulfils part of the vision in Genesis 1-2 of man and woman together representing the image of God and called to exercise authority in the world on God’s behalf.
This is in stark contrast to A Feminist Dictionary [10], whose definitions are self-explanatory:
- Male: “... represents a variant of or deviation from the category of female. The first males were mutants... the male sex represents a degeneration and deformity of the female.”
- Man: “... an obsolete life form... an ordinary creature who needs to be watched ... a contradictory baby-man.”
- Testosterone Poisoning: “Until now it has been thought that the level of testosterone in men is normal simply because they have it. But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from ‘testosterone poisoning.’”
Feminist author Ti-Grace Atkinson shows her true autonomy when stating, “the institution of sexual intercourse is anti-feminist” [11]. Marilyn French, feminist author calls all men rapists: “All men are rapists and that's all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, and their codes”[12]. Gloria Steinen, feminist extraordinaire, wrote the following about Andrea Dwarkin, a contemporary, “Every century, there are a handful of writers who help the human race to evolve. Andrea is one of them.” Wow, such high accolades from one of the most well-known activists in the feminist movement, so what does this Andrea Dworkin have to say about us men? “Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies.”
Creating Victims
One must keep in mind that when studying comparative theologies through the lenses (e.g., worldview) of modern feminism, that time honored hermeneutics [13] will be subjugated by gender influenced politics. This revisionist goal will not only affect the Bible, and hence Christianity, but also other holy books and religious beliefs. Other presuppositions that drive the modern feminist movement include philosophical naturalism (atheism), and what I call metaphysical naturalism (neo-paganism). Metaphysical naturalism is merely the spiritual movement based partly on the reawakening of “goddess consciousness,” and its real goal is matriarchy, not equality!
The Christian tradition is rich with examples of feminism [14]. The feminism that truly empowers women, not the feminism that makes victicrats [15] out of well meaning woman that wish to make a difference. Christina Hoff Sommers, a liberal feminist and formerly professor of philosophy at Clark University, comments on the current condition of modern feminism:
“The orthodox feminists are so carried away with victimology, with a rhetoric of male-bashing that it's full of female chauvinists, if you will. Also, women are quite eager to censor, to silence. And what concerns me most as a philosopher is it's become very anti-intellectual, and I think it poses a serious risk to young women in the universities. Women's studies classes are increasingly a kind of initiation into the most radical wing, the most intolerant wing, of the feminist movement” [16].
Many true feminists, like Christina, do away with the many myths that are meant to “scare” woman into becoming radicals [17]. Books by feminist Christina Hoff Sommers [18] are good books to refute such myths. Alternatively, the Independent Women’s Forum can be accessed via the Internet [19, 20]. This “backlash” by women against modern feminism is well summed up in a review of the book Feminism Is Not the Story of My Life: How Today's Feminist Elite Has Lost Touch With the Real Concerns of Women, by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese:
According to historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese (who describes herself as a feminist), is that most women perceive “official” feminism as indifferent to their deepest concerns. In particular, they are put off by the movement's negative attitude toward marriage and motherhood, its intolerance for dissent from its most controversial positions, its attacks on men, and its inattention to the practical problems of balancing work and family on a day-to-day basis. Hence the title, echoing a refrain running through the author's conversations with a diverse sample of women: “Feminism is not the story of my life” [21]
To Conclude
Social commentator and radio show host, Dennis Prager, takes note that males tend to be “rule oriented.” The implication being that Western culture is heavily influenced in the Judeo-Christian standards of moral code. This, he says, is ironic, that, in the name of feminism, women are attempting to emasculate the God of Western religious morality. “For if their goal is achieved, it is women who will suffer most from lawless males” [22]
So long as feminism seeks to adjust the legal position of women to that of man. So long as it seeks to offer her legal and economic freedom to develop and act in accordance with her inclinations, desires, and economic circumstances – so long as it is nothing more than a branch of the great liberal movement, which advocates peaceful and free evolution. When, going beyond this, it attacks the institutions of social life under the impression that it will thus be able to remove natural barriers, it is a spiritual child of socialism. For it is a characteristic of socialism to discover in social institutions the origin of unalterable facts of nature, and to endeavor, by reforming these institutions, to reform nature [22]. No one can deny that, in the course of history, women often found themselves in a subordinate position – though by no means always or in every society. But at the same time, women were protected, and in many an epoch, placed on a pedestal. In any event, the complex and varied role of women through the ages cannot be reduced to a simplistic slogan describing one half of all human beings as “the victims of history.” Those who say so have a quarrel with God, or with nature, or simply with the facts [24].
FootNotes
[1] Christina Hoff Sommers, “Feminism and Philosophy,” APA (American Philosophical Association) Newsletter, 91, no. 1 (Spring 1992), p. 85.
[2] Francis J. Beckwith, Ed., Do the Right Thing: A Philosophical Dialogue on the Moral and Social Issues of Our Time, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, Boston: MA [1996], p. 587.
[3] worldview: People have presuppositions, and they will live more consistently on the basis of these presuppositions than even they themselves may realize. By “presuppositions” we mean the basic way an individual looks at life, his basic worldview, the grid through which he sees the world. Presuppositions rest upon that which a person considers to be the truth of what exists. People’s presuppositions lay a grid for all they bring forth into the external world. Their presuppositions also provide the basis for their values and therefore the basis for their decisions. “As a man thinketh, so he is,” is really profound. An individual is not just the product of the forces around him. He has a mind, an inner world. Then, having thought, a person can bring forth actions into the external world and thus influence it. People are apt to look at the outer theater of action, forgetting the actor who “lives in the mind” and who therefore is the true actor in the external world. The inner thought world determines the outward action. Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society the way a child catches measles. But people with more understanding realize that their presuppositions should be chosen after a careful consideration of what worldview is true. When all is done, when all the alternatives have been explored, “not many men are in the room” – that is, although worldviews have many variations, there are not many basic worldviews or presuppositions – Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, Crossway Books, Wheaton [1976], pp. 19-20.
[4] Ronald H. Nash, Worldviews in Conflict: Choosing Christianity in a World of Ideas, Zondervan, Grand Rapids: MI [1992].
[5] Sandra Harding & Merrill Hintikka, Ed., Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Science, p. 312 – excerpted from Do the Right Thing, see footnote #55.
[6] http://www.spiritone.com/~law/hatequotes.html
[7] Tammy Bruce, The New Thought Police: Inside the Left’s Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds, Random House Inc, New York: NY [2001], p. 123
[8] Ibid., p. 142
[9] February 1973
[10] Edited by Cheris Kramarae & Paula A. Treichler. Feminist Dictionary, University of Illinois Press, Champaign: IL [1986].
[11] Amazon Odyssey p. 86 - http://www.vix.com/men/bash/quotes.html
[12] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/q108276.html
[13] “Traditionally the sub-discipline of theology concerned with the proper interpretation of scriptural texts” C. Stephen Evans, Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics & Philosophy of Religion, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove: IL [2002].
[14] Helen Kooiman Hosier, 100 Christian Woman Who Changed the 20th Century, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids: MI [2000]; and Rebecca Price Janney, Great Woman in American History, Horizon Books, Camp Hill: PA [1996].
[15] “A victicrat is one who blames all ills, problems, concerns, and unhappiness on others” (Larry Elder, Ten Things You Can’t Say in America, St. Martins, New York: NY [2000], p. 22-33)
[16] Unpublished paper from Clark University
[17] These include some of the following: 1) Myth of the Extent of Anorexia Nervosa; 2) Myth of Amount of Domestic Violence; 3) Myth of Increased Domestic Battery on Super Bowl Sunday; 4) Myth Concerning Percent of Women Raped; 5) Myth Concerning Female Self-esteem; 6) Myth of Discrimination Against Females in School; 7) Myth of Huge Gender Wage Gap, Etc.
[18] Who Stole Feminism: How Woman Have Betrayed Woman, Simon & Schuster, New York: NY [1995]; The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men
[19] http://www.iwf.org/news/010417.shtml
[20] http://www.iwf.org/
[21] http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9603/reviews/feminism.html
[22] Dennis Prager, Think a Second Time Regan Books, New York: NY [1995], p. 249.
[23] Ludwig von Mises, Socialism, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis: IN [1981], p.87.
[24] Balint Vazsonyi, America’s 30 Years War: Who Is Winning? Regnery Publishing, Washington: D. C. [1998], p. 214
My point is that women’s rights today are not rights at all, but radicalism made politically-correct.
Urobolus, I have never said pluralism shouldn’t be allowed, however, mainstreaming the gay lifestyle isn’t pluralism. Allowing people to do what they wish in the privacy of their home is. When you said, “And believe me, friend, that a state based solely off the laws and values presented in the Bible and allowing no room for change would destroy that,” you are mischaracterizing my argument (straw-man).
Our culture, laws, and societal norms are based in the Judeo-Christian norms. Most of Western civilization is. Our laws [b]are already[/b] based on the Christian norm, for the most part. It isn’t, “what if.” Your example of the KKK is a bad one:
“The KKK will never agree--justifying themselves by certain passages in the Bible--that blacks should be given rights, but in order to live in a stable America, they must accept a median which they do not totally approve of but understand must be kept for the sake of stability in the nation.”
The Bible does not support the contention that the religious movement of the KKK (Christian Identity) give it. In addition, skin color verses whether someone prefers male on male sex, male on multiple people sex, male on animal sex, or a combination of the above, have nothing to do with the civil rights battle of black people. There is no way to prove someone is gay, there is a way to prove a person is black:
Average Household Income:
Homosexuals – $55,430 / African Americans – $12,166
Percentage of College Graduates:
Homosexuals – 60% / African Americans – 5%
Holding Professional Positions:
Homosexuals – 49% / African Americans – 1%
Taken Overseas Vacations:
Homosexuals – 66% / African Americans – 1%
Ever Denied the Right to Vote:
Homosexuals – No / African Americans – Yes
Ever Faced Legal Segregation:
Homosexuals – No / African Americans – Yes
Ever Denied Access to Public Restrooms:
Homosexuals – No / African Americans – Yes
Ever Denied Access to Businesses and Restaurants:
Homosexuals – No / African Americans – Yes
I am going to change speeds a bit and post here a debate I am having elsewhere. So the following posts will be many, but I have already answered most of the inquiries here.
Your comparison of Christian ideals, the one’s the founders used, and that of Islam is like comparing apples and oranges. It comes from a mind that gives equal credence to the vastly different moral systems espoused to the two religious texts. A fault of radical pluralism.
